Sprint spokesman Paul Marcarelli
appears in a new holiday ad with his real-life husband Ryan Brown.

Marcarelli is best known for asking
“Can you hear me now?” in Verizon commercials for nearly a
decade.

This year, Marcarelli switched to
Sprint.

In the 30-second ad, Marcarelli and
Brown are considering two Christmas trees. One costs twice as much
for 1 percent more needles – a supposed reference to the services
offered by Sprint and Verizon.

“We'll take this one,” Brown says,
pointing to the less expensive tree.

“Can you hear that?” Marcarelli
says into the camera, which could be a nod to the fact that Brown
just ordered a tree for himself and Marcarelli.

In a 2011 interview with The
Atlantic, Marcarelli explained that his time as a Verizon
spokesperson was marred by a self-imposed silence. He gave as an
example declining to file a police report against kids who would
drive by his house and yell “faggot.”

“I definitely think that my reticence
to have any kind of persona outside of this job was that I didn't
want to be put in a position to have to answer any uncomfortable
questions that would affect my income stream. And I never tested it,
so I don't know,” he said.